In 1958, when Chana Wilson was seven, her mother held a rifle to her own head and pulled the trigger. The gun jammed and she was taken away to a mental hospital. On her return, Chana became the caretaker of her heavily medicated, suicidal mother. It would be many years before she learned the secret of her mother’s anguish: her love affair with another married woman, and the psychiatric treatment aimed at curing her of her lesbianism.

Riding Fury Home spans forty years of the intense, complex relationship between Chana and her mother — the trauma of their early years together, the transformation and joy they found when they both came out in the 1970s, and the deep bond that grew between them. From the intolerance of the ‘50s to the exhilaration of the women’s movement of the ‘70s and beyond, the book traces the profound ways in which their two lives were impacted by the social landscape of their time. Exquisitely written and devastatingly honest, Riding Fury Home is a shattering account of one family’s struggle against homophobia and mental illness — and a powerful story of healing, forgiveness, and redemption.

“Chana Wilson’s astonishing story is a hybrid of nightmare and fairy tale in which every child’s worst fears and fondest hopes about their mother come true.”—Alison Bechdel, author of Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic

“I finished the book feeling enlarged for what I’d read, inspired and hopeful. Riding Fury Home is a beautiful and very human story of vast themes: birth, death, desire, hope, oppression overcome. Wilson tells her stories in a powerful way that brings the universal home.”—Lambda Literary

“Chana Wilson has done a wonderful thing — putting on the page so much grief, fear, and stubborn awe-inspiring endurance. We rarely look closely at complicated relationships like the one she had with her mother, and even more rarely look at how they change over time. This is not heroes and villains, but a layered, intimate exchange in which it seems the child is never quite allowed to be a child — and yet still manages to hang onto a carefully constructed loving closeness.”—Dorothy Allison, author of Bastard Out of Carolina

“It quickly becomes clear from the beginning pages of this memoir that although Chana Wilson is a first-time author, she is a masterful storyteller.” —Bay Area Reporter

“A stunning story with a redemptive ending, Riding Fury Home is full of surprises and mind-opening revelations.”—Sandy Boucher, author of Hidden Spring

“From the horrors of her childhood in 1950s New Jersey to the liberating discovering of her sexual identity decades later, psychotherapist Wilson’s memoir is as heartbreaking as it is uplifting. Through sharing her personal tale of forgiveness and unconditional love, Wilson breaks the silence on the trauma of oppression and the ecstasy of self-acceptance—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“As a work of socially relevant art, this memoir is above reproach. As a historical document, it is both lamentation of a shameful past and evidence of how far we’ve come.”—San Francisco Chronicle

“Her frank and moving memoir…reminds us how much one remarkable, compelling life can tell us about the culture in which it thrives.  When at long last Wilson discovers freedom and support in love with women, readers won’t just know her and her heart better — they’ll better understand the last 50 years of American life.”  —SF Weekly

“What a difference twenty years makes. Wilson’s Riding Fury Home offers us a dramatic look at what it meant for a woman to love a woman in 1950 versus what it felt like to come out in 1970 in the earliest most ebullient days of the women’s movement. A remarkable story that holds out transformation as a possibility for any of us — no matter how late — and for us as a society, no matter how long in coming.”—Laura Flynn, author of Swallow the Ocean

Awards and Honors:

Gold medal winner: Independent Publisher Book Awards
Winner: National Indie Excellence Book Awards
Winner: Association for Women in Psychology Jewish Women’s Caucus 2013 Award for Scholarship
Finalist, Debut Author and Short Story/Collections: Golden Crown Literary Society
2013 Over the Rainbow List of the American Library Association